Why It Got Loud...It Might Get Loud: Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page: Led Zeppelin mastermind.

While The White Stripes is my newest interest and U2 is my earliest memory, of the three bands represented in "It Might Get Loud," Led Zeppelin is my hands-down favorite. Like almost anyone else, I had heard of Led Zeppelin, but for much of my life, I had no idea what any of their songs were. I certainly had no concept of their influence on all rock and roll that has followed since their dominance of the 1970s.

In fact, my earliest pseudo-Zeppelin memory is of some goofy-looking guy named Robert Plant in a cheesey 80s music video. As far as I knew, he was just one of many terrible 80s artists. When I got into Zeppelin (12 to 15 years later) and realized the lead singer of this sonic beast was Plant, I was baffled. For me, that name had always been synonymous with Miami Vice, Max Headroom, and time-traveling DeLorians. It wasn't until Widespread Panic covered "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Over the Hills and Far Away" in the late 90s that I had any interest in Led Zeppelin.

Wait...so the guy that did this...

Also did this?

It was then that a friend loaned me Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album and I avoided returning it for as long as possible. To this day, this is one of two or three albums I'd consider taking with me in one of those deserted island hypothetical situations. From "Black Dog" to "Rock and Roll" (a.k.a. the Cadillac commercial song in recent years) to "The Battle of Evermore" to "Misty Mountain Hop" to "Going to California" to "When the Levee Breaks," this is quite possibly the single greatest recording in history. That's to say nothing of the ground-breaking drum antics of John Bonham on "Four Sticks" (easily my least favorite track on the album) or the most requested song of all-time, "Stairway to Heaven."

This album opened up an entirely new world of music to me. Never before had I heard such power. The sound was and still is so heavy, that despite countless advancements in technology, I don't think anyone has ever been able to recapture anything like it. All other music paled in comparison to Led Zeppelin, specifically their fourth album. With 37 million copies sold, it ranks as the 12th highest selling album in the history of the world. I'm honestly shocked it isn't higher on the list. That said, it ranks as the third highest selling album in United States history. Not bad for a band that hasn't released a new track in three decades.

If you don't already own it and you ever see this odd image at a record store, pay whatever it takes to take it home with you. I guarantee you won't be disappointed in this, the greatest album of all time...name or no name.

Statistics aside, this all leads into one of the Jimmy Page highlights of "It Might Get Loud" for me. The film takes us inside of Headley Grange, a three-story stone house in which Led Zeppelin recorded much of the fourth album. Most notably, I've read numerous articles that mentioned the cavernous hallway/staircase area in which the drum track to "When the Levee Breaks" was recorded. If you aren't familiar with this song, stop reading right now, find it on the internet, plug your computer into the loudest stereo you can find, and crank the volume as loud as you can. I have yet to hear a drum track as heavy and ominous as the drum track on "When the Levee Breaks."

An ancient blues song, Zeppelin remade it into their own epic. Not to get too far off the subject of "It Might Get Loud" or Jimmy Page, but I promise this all ties back into the bigger picture. "Levee" might be my favorite song on my favorite album of all time. The nearly unbearable weight of this song, as best as I can tell, can be attributed to two things: the genius of recording the drum track in such a tremendous open space as the hallway/stairway of Headley Grange and the production genius of Jimmy Page slowing the track down (to the point that it was nearly impossible to replicate live). Other effects (backwards echo on the harmonica, placing the echo ahead of the initial sound) were also key.

The only picture of the Headley Grange staircase I could find.

All that is to say that when "It Might Get Loud" took me inside Headley Grange with Jimmy Page and revealed the infamous hallway/staircase in which much of this took place, I literally got chills. I honestly can't think of a parallel for such footage. Maybe Elvis taking you on a tour of Sunset Studios? Paul McCartney giving you a tour of Abbey Road Studios? Neither of those scenarios really capture the significance of the footage for me, but that's the best I can do. This was where musical history was made and your tour guide was one of the guys that made it happen. Unbelievable.

Headley Grange as it was.

As I told one of the friends that watched this with me, Jimmy Page was the brains behind Led Zeppelin. I'm a huge Robert Plant fan . His vocals were absolutely unrivaled by anyone I ever heard before or since. Many imitated it (Steven Tyler, Axle Rose, every hair band in the 80s, etc.), but no one ever compared. Even approaching his twilight years, as his vocal range seems to have faded a bit, the purity and smoothness of his voice remain unmatched. And he isn't a bad songwriter either.

Even with the charisma of a frontman like Plant, Zeppelin would have never taken off without Page. An accomplished session musician on random tracks for various British artists (The Who, The Rolling Stones, etc.), Page landed a gig with The Yardbirds just as their time was coming to a close. When The Yardbirds came apart and their manager suggested he form a "New Yardbirds," Led Zeppelin was born (performing early shows as "The New Yardbirds").

The New Yardbirds? Nothing against Beck or Clapton, but this doesn't look like their thing. Thank God for Keith Moon's (The Who's drummer) quip that this band would take off like a "Lead Zeppelin."

Page and his new lead singer, Robert Plant, were fast friends and shared a lot of similar musical passions. Where Plant was a vocal prodigy and impressive songwriter, Page was a daring composer and producer. Not only did his guitar antics rival Hendrix and anyone in generations to come, but he would tinker with effects and technology in the studio to create sounds, depth, and breadth that no one had ever dreamed of. Layers upon layers of sound would give Led Zeppelin its unique place in music history, all at the direction of Jimmy Page.

This guy's name is Jimmy Page. He plays guitar well.

So, back to "It Might Get Loud." Aside from the Headley Grange footage, any shot containing Jimmy Page demanded my full attention. When The Edge's (and Jack White's) eyes lit up watching Page play "Whole Lotta Love," I felt like the lucky guy that introduced them to Led Zeppelin decades ago. Of course, they were well aware of Zeppelin 20 to 40 years prior, but to see the expressions on their faces, you would think it was their first time witnessing the genius of Jimmy Page. Remarkable.

Wow, they got old. But the 2007 Led Zeppelin reunion suggests that neither Page (right) nor Plant (left) have lost a step...at least according to the caregivers at their respective nursing homes.

Two final highlights for me: "In My Time of Dying" and "Kashmir." "In My Time of Dying" is (like many classic Zeppelin songs) an old blues song reworked into a hard rock epic. I could rattle off 10 or 20 Led Zeppelin songs that many moderately interested fans would recognize, but "In My Time of Dying" is one of the few (along with "Levee" and "Kashmir") that could stand alone as works of art to anyone that never heard Zeppelin play a note.

In and of itself, "Dying" contains multiple movements and arrangements that should impress a classical music buff. The slide guitar and funky off-beat rhythm make it a mind-blowing track worthy of more praise than it has ever received. Now, take iconic guitar players from the last two generations, saddle them with the task of playing along with the genius that orchestrated it all 30+ years ago, and see what happens.

White and The Edge do their best to keep up with Jimmy.

What happens is one of the most incredible couple of minutes in my musical memory. Say what you will about any one of these guitar players or their respective bands, but the three of them absolutely destroyed "In My Time of Dying" in a way that I never imagined. Page handled the best known licks, but both White and The Edge added nuances (both playing slide guitar) that took this song to an entirely new level. I literally scooted to the edge of my seat, hung on every note, and shook away the chill bumps as this song came to an end. I would have done terrible things for another few notes.

I won't spend as much time on "Kashmir" since it is actually in the special features, but suffice it to say that many similar thoughts crossed my mind as a couple of guys that just gained enormous amounts of my respect watched in awe as one of my (and millions others') heroes taught them another lesson about one of his many iconic riffs. Absolutely surreal.

You may be able to hear "Stairway" in any guitar shop, but it never sounds as sweet as when Jimmy plays it on his double-neck.

In short, Led Zeppelin is rock and roll, Jimmy Page is Led Zeppelin, and nothing would have ever been as loud without him.

Special Effects...It Might Get Loud: The Edge

The Edge

My exposure to U2 and The Edge was a bit more extensive than that of The White Stripes and Jack White. In fact, of the three guitar players featured in "It Might Get Loud," The Edge is almost certainly the first I ever heard (or at least remember hearing).

As a kid in the 80s, the music I heard was limited almost exclusively to whatever my brothers listened to. Even that was often filtered through my parents' watchful eyes (probably for the best). Much to many of my friends' amusement over the years, that limited most of my early popular music memory to Elvis Presley, Huey Lewis and the News, The Cars, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Richard Marx, Sir Mix-a-Lot, and D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

Occasionally, other hits would seep into my consciousness. Mostly through radio, I was vaguely familiar with other popular artists of the day (Prince, Madonna, Billy Joel, etc.). Through a few friends, I was aware of some 80s heavy metal and hair bands (Aerosmith, AC/DC, Metallica, Poison, Def Leppard, and eventually Guns N Roses). One-hit wonders and certain bands became synonymous with 80s music for me. In addition to whoever sang "867-5309" and "Jessie's Girl," INXS, U2, and The Talking Heads probably fit best into that category. Not one-hit wonders, but very 80s in my mind.

No amusing movie cameos that I'm aware of, but The Edge might have the coolest name in rock and roll. And he still dresses like he's 15.

I didn't think much about any of this music in the 90s and only revisited it when I realized one of my new favorite bands, Widespread Panic, was big into The Talking Heads. Around this time, I realized that other people still liked U2. Somewhat surprised, I grabbed a greatest hits CD and an album or two that seemed to be pretty big during and shortly after my college years in the early to mid 2000s. I specifically remembered my oldest brother having a cassette of "The Joshua Tree" when I was younger and I made it a point to buy that one as well.

Listening through that U2 greatest hits CD and "The Joshua Tree" flooded my mind with all sorts of nostalgia for the 80s, but surprisingly, it all stood the test of time. Almost all of it sounded like it could have been recorded in the last few months (though "It Might Get Loud" reminds you how long ago they were recorded when you witness The Edge dust off some ancient cassette demos and relive them for the camera in his modest kitchen). The new U2 stuff I heard at this time managed to maintain the sound for which they were known, but remained fresh.

The full extent of U2's lasting impact didn't hit me until my oldest brother attended a U2 concert a few years ago, showed me a live DVD from that tour, and gave me a live CD from around that time. I had no idea that these guys still sold out stadiums, ran around a massive stage, and had 50,000+ people singing along every night at outrageous ticket prices. I had apparently been missing out on yet another legendary rock and roll band.

I never gave much thought to the guitar work put forth by The Edge until I actually tried to play some of U2's songs myself. Make no mistake, I can't play much of anything accurately, but for such seemingly simple guitar licks, his stuff is nearly impossible to duplicate. This is where The Edge enters into completely uncharted waters for me. Jack White and Jimmy Page are firmly grounded in the blues and boast masterful technique in nimble, intricate solos. In contrast, The Edge is beautifully simplistic in his playing, but mind-boggling in the effects he employs through an entire network of peddles, wires, amps, knobs, buttons, and switches.

Uh...is this a U2 concert or an enormous Wal-Mart claw game? I wonder how many hot 40 and 50-year-old groupies that thing can scoop up for a quarter. Nonetheless, anyone that gets to play on this stage is doing something right.

The most telling portion of "It Might Get Loud" for me is when The Edge's guitar tech tries to explain the complexity of his equipment, peddles, amps, etc. Each song has very specific settings on various pieces of equipment, all of which are at least in part controlled by the peddles at The Edge's feet. For example, the intense, electronic guitar sound for much of "Elevation" is almost exclusively generated by the effects manipulated by his feet. At one point in the film, he reveals that all he is doing during this unique part is a single strum on two chords. Without the effects, its simplicity should make any guitar player kick himself.

Not being as big of a U2 fan as many are, I could be completely wrong in my understanding of The Edge, but I gather that he is not the technical wizard that Jimmy Page (or even Jack White) is. At times during the film, he seemed to be a little slower to catch on to what the other two were doing. That said, I think it is almost undeniable that he is a master of technology and effects. I have never heard anyone that sounded like The Edge. He has one of the most distinctive sounds of any guitar player I've ever heard. Even when it is a song you have never heard, it rarely takes long to recognize U2, thanks primarily to The Edge.

The Edge's echoes and effects defined great rock and roll for a generation that by and large lacked even decent rock and roll. For that, he was easily the most appropriate guitar player to bridge the gap from Jack White to Jimmy Page. Never mind that he is a key ingredient in arguably the biggest active rock and roll band in the world. "It Might Get Loud" only solidified my determination to catch a U2 show very soon.

"Look Out, Man!"...It Might Get Loud: Jack White

Jack White of The White Stripes

When I first heard about "It Might Get Loud," a friend told me about it because he knew I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan. He might have also been aware that I liked U2 a pretty good bit as well. That's all just to say that I was very interested to see it, but Jack White was by far the least intriguing of the three stars for me personally.

Up to that point, my exposure to White was pretty limited. I remember seeing one of The White Stripes' earliest videos on MTV in the early 2000s ("Fell In Love With a Girl" I believe) and thinking that it was catchy, but obviously, I didn't rush out to buy their CD. Within a few years, I saw them perform on an awards show of some kind. I remember being a bit more impressed by his guitar-playing and recognized that they had charisma and stage presence. Still, I was a bit of a music snob when it came to bands that weren't known for 10 or 15-minute songs.

In the last couple of years, I had two main exposures to Jack White. One was a pretty hilarious cameo as Elvis Presley in "Walk Hard," the John C. Reilly comedy spoofing musical biographies such as "Ray!" and "Walk the Line." His mumbling, mostly incoherent performance was a highlight of the film. Even so, a catchy song or two and a sense of humor were still not quite enough to get me into The White Stripes. But when a friend brought a copy of "Icky Thump" to my house a couple years ago, I was just about sold.

Jack White as Elvis Presley. "It's called karate, man, and only two kinds of people know it: the Chinese and the King...and one of 'em is me."

Fortunately for me, my friend accidentally left the latest White Stripes album at my house and I listened to it a good bit for a week or two. Unfortunately for me (and my friend), I lost it pretty quickly and more or less forgot to look into their music any further. Almost two years later, in cleaning out part of my house I rarely dare to enter, I stumbled across my buddy's CD. This was a couple of weeks ago and I have absolutely worn it out since rediscovering it.

Among several things that really drew me into this album are some unmistakably blues-oriented electric guitar licks, White's impressive vocal style and range (until now, unnoticed or underestimated by me), and a diversity of sound of which I was unaware they had.

The bluesy guitar riffs were the first to draw me in. This is particularly funny in hindsight as White comments in the film that they intentionally chose to have a red, white, and black color scheme, peppermint swirl on Meg's bass drum, etc. for the specific purpose of distracting audiences from the fact that they were just trying to play the blues. Mission accomplished. They tricked me out of listening to them for almost a decade until I noticed the blues myself on this album. Anyway, in my limited exposure to The White Stripes, my impression was much more of a punk or indie band, but there was no mistaking the blues influence on a number of these songs. Much of it (especially the slide guitar stuff) reminded me of Zeppelin's reworking of old blues songs ("In My Time of Dying," "Dazed and Confused," "When the Levee Breaks," etc.). That's never a bad thing to remind me of.

The White Stripes

White's vocals were another major attraction from the opening note. Maybe I just want to hear Zeppelin in everything, and I wouldn't go as far as to say he has Robert Plant's range, but I swear there are several points at which he sounds like he's channeling Plant (especially on "I'm Slowly Turning Into You"). That also is not to say that I think he is cheaply imitating Robert Plant like most 80s hair bands did. He definitely has his own unique and unmistakable vocal style, something that most of my favorite artists have. I definitely underestimated him as a singer up to this point (and any ability to sound anything like Robert Plant scores points with me).

Finally, the sonic diversity on this album was a pleasant surprise. I guess I expected every White Stripes song to be a really loud, fast, mindless two minutes of two chords and some screaming. I couldn't have been more wrong. These guys (he and his ex-wife, Meg White) throw in some acoustic guitar, organ, some electronic-sounding keyboards, bagpipes, and even a little mariachi trumpet. On a track called "Baby Brother," it sounds like Elvis Presley stumbled into the wrong studio and recorded with a punk band. It is rare that an album holds my attention from start to finish, especially if it is a band with which I'm not very familiar. I almost always listen to this one without skipping a track and I attribute that mostly to each song sounding so different.

All of this is to say that "It Might Get Loud" came along at just the right time (just as I got into the the youngest of the three featured guitarists) to completely blow my mind. I found myself on the edge of my seat through much of the movie because there would now be no "down time" between segments on the two guys I really liked. Even if I hadn't just gained a new appreciation for Jack White and The White Stripes, his segments in the film are among the most entertaining and I would have probably checked them out pretty quickly after seeing it.

Apparently Jack White can play more than a whacked-out Elvis.

More on The Edge and Jimmy Page in upcoming posts.

It Might Get Loud

Every once in a while, I come across something that I'm just dying to share with everyone I know that I think would be interested. It could be a belief, band, song, movie, place, etc. that I just feel everyone should at least be aware of, if not experience for themselves.

One such experience has been breathing down my neck for a few months now. It came highly recommended from multiple people whose opinions I respect about such things. Each time someone else mentioned it, I was almost ashamed that I had not yet gone out of my way to check it out for myself. When I dropped by a friend's house a few nights ago, this latest experience finally caught up with me. And it blew me away.

The experience in question is "It Might Get Loud." To call it a documentary about the electric guitar featuring Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, The Edge of U2, and Jack White of The White Stripes does not begin to do it justice. Before those of you that aren't music geeks stop reading, hear me out.

This film is one of the most fascinating things I have ever seen. From the opening scene when Jack White builds a one-string electric guitar out of little more than a block of wood and a Coke bottle and proceeds to wail on it unlike anyone I've ever heard play a proper six-string electric guitar, my jaw was on the floor for the better part of two hours.

It's not a History Channel documentary rigidly chronicling the invention and evolution of the electric guitar like some visual encyclopedia article. It's also not a VH1 "Behind the Music" episode on the bands these guitarists respectively represent. It is a well-crafted work of art created by plucking arguably the greatest living guitarist from each of the last three generations, interviewing them separately, and dropping them into a room together to see what happens. And what happens during the group segments is on par with any rock fan's wildest dreams.

They played together, but it wasn't some self-indulgent concert with pyrotechnics and ten-minute solos. It was more of a summit of generational icons discussing musical influences, their first guitars, and teaching each other some of their most memorable riffs. All of the more technical music stuff is broken-up nicely for the more casual fan with individual profiles of each guitarist detailing their lives and careers in their own words.

I'm going to leave it at that for this post, mainly because I could type another mega-post about this movie and I think it will be much more readable if I break it into segments. I'll try not to make each post a detailed review as much as I will tell a little about my experience with each guitarist's music, what impresses me with each, and why the three of them being captured on film in the same room is something I think everyone could (and possibly should) enjoy.

News Flash: Republicans Won't Win Every Single Election From Now To Eternity

TIME Magazine's Mark Halperin gazing into his crystal ball. Some of his most insightful predictions:

"Republicans may not win the Senate."
"The BP oil spill may take some time to clean up."
"The World Cup may suck."

Again, I don't intend for this blog to be all about politics, but a friend of mine asked my thoughts on this article from TIME magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2003079,00.html?hpt=T2

I'd highly recommend reading the TIME article linked above for context, but my summary of it is that basically the author believes the Tea Party movement might actually prevent the Republicans from taking over the Senate in November. Suffice it to say that I disagree. It was never likely that the Republicans would take the Senate, but pinning it on the Tea Party is a stretch in my opinion. My gut reaction is that this guy fears the Tea Party, thinks he can look like Nostradamus if he predicts something that was pretty likely to begin with, and in looking brilliant to some otherwise politically unengaged readers, secure blame and dislike for a group and belief set that he doesn't like.

"See, I told you so, reader-with-only-a-passing-interest-and-had-no-idea-that-most-analysts-already-expected-Democrats-to-retain-control-of-the-Senate! Remember when I said the Republicans wouldn't take the Senate because the Tea Party is so wild and crazy?!? Well, look! The Republicans didn't take the Senate! THEREFORE, the Tea Partiers ARE crazy and MUST be to blame as I predicted in all my infinite wisdom!"

I would compare his prediction and analysis to my predicting that the Dawgs will not win the SEC Football Championship this year and if they don't, controversial UGA President Michael Adams is to blame. It is possible, though not particularly likely that the Dawgs will win the SEC this year. I'm not going out on much of a limb. It is possible, though not particularly likely, that Adams could do something stupid to cost the Dawgs such a championship (maybe replace Mark Richt with Lee Corso). That said, Adams will be around, smugly sitting in his skybox plotting his next scheme to irritate the UGA community, so if I watch him and scream and shout enough...if I get enough people on board with the idea that he is to blame for any and all UGA losses, maybe we can run him off.

UGA President Michael Adams: "Wait until they hear that I had Uga VII neutered before he ever produced a male heir! Mwah ha ha ha ha ha! My work here is done!"

As much as I don't care for Adams, predicting something that is already likely and suggesting that it will be his fault when it happens does not mean that it really will be his fault when it happens. It could be, but it probably won't be. But maybe I could trick a few people into disliking him along the way...And that's where I think this TIME author is coming from. I could be wrong. But I'm probably not. Anyway, if you're not a political junkie, this could get boring pretty quickly. Below is more or less my email response to my friend (that I was then encouraged to post as a blog entry):

I think (the TIME author's opinion of the Tea Party) is mostly wishful thinking. Is it true that Charlie Crist could screw up the Florida senate race (NOT Marco Rubio)? Sure, but I think the chances of Republicans taking the Senate in this election has always been significantly less than 50-50 (and often considered pretty slim...it seems that most hoping for a Republican Senate takeover seemed to think that it was possible, but that the stars would have to align just right), so this guy is by no means going out on a limb here. There is no excuse for the Republicans not to take the House though (which is all they really need to do to slow/stop our march toward socialism until 2012).

What interests me most about this is the author's motivation. What purpose is there in laying out an article stating what many analysts have already proclaimed for months? The key difference is that he takes it a step further and pins the blame for something that was never likely to happen on the wing of the party he most fears rising to power. I'm confident the author is liberal (mainly because he writes for TIME), so you can immediately dismiss any "advice" he has for the Republican party as suspect. Like most liberals, he is likely afraid of the Tea Party movement and its small government, independent-minded ideals.

Funny. When the Tea Party movement first picked up momentum, they were accused of being "astroturf"...a manufactured, fake, not-really-grassroots movement full of plants and people put up to no good or paid to crash townhall meetings on healthcare. Now, the criticism is that they're completely unorganized radicals. Which is it? Anything to marginalize them (and blame them for something that is largely the product of only electing a third of the Senate every 2 years...gaining 10 or 11 seats with only 33 up for grabs would be relatively historic...the fact that it is even fathomable is a testament to Americans' distaste for Obamunism).

And as a side note, Arlen Specter was not run out of the Republican Party. He abandoned (or never held) any conservative ideals and typically voted with the Democrats anyway. He left on his own when he realized he might not be nominated for his own seat by a party he had largely already left. Then, he learned the hard way what I've been saying all along. Moderate Republicans can't out-Democrat Democrats. Democrats and liberal media types might say "he's not bad for a Republican," but when it comes down to a choice between a lukewarm Republican and a flaming liberal, the Democratic party, their money, support, and their votes get behind the farthest left candidate that can appear the most moderate.

Making moderate Republicans welcome in a big tent party and helping them win in far left districts is one thing, but sacrificing conservative principles to try to make liberals and moderates like us is a losing strategy nationally...every time. This country is essentially 40% conservative, 20% liberal, and 40% independent. With a population claiming such center-right ideals, if everyone in politics is honest about their (supposed) ideals, conservatives run away with nearly every national election. If conservatives effectively communicate and practice their beliefs, they win nearly every national election. Period. Conservatives don't have to make the massive shifts to the center that liberals do, nor should they. What are you conserving if you are always giving in to those trying to grow government, spending, and taxes and changing society, culture, and interpretations of the Constitution? Moderates only grow government and allow change slower than liberals.

Liberal Democrats have to lie about their beliefs and move hard to the center to be electable. Republicans don't have to (and actually alienate double the base that the Democrats do by doing so). Let's be honest. Conservatives generally expect more from their leaders ethically than liberals (whether they get more ethically may be debatable), making a liberal's move to the center less offensive to their respective base. The far left knows their candidate's move to the center is insincere and they are more than okay with it. Whatever it takes to sneak some fringe beliefs into office. More of the country identifies with the small government, low tax, frugal spending message than the radical change, high taxing, big spending message. The Tea Party movement is as much a backlash against Republican spending under Bush as Democrat spending under Obama. Crist, Specter, McCain, etc. left the conservatives behind and only McCain will have a job in January (even though it's not the one he wanted in 2008).

Larger point being, yes, the author's forecast is likely correct (similar to my ability to predict that the Dawgs won't win the SEC this year), but he (I think knowingly) is incorrectly placing the blame on the most naturally-occurring and peaceful political movement our country has seen in decades, primarily in an effort to marginalize beliefs he fears. At the very least, there seems to be an ongoing media commentary suggesting that anything short of an undefeated election season is a huge disappointment for Republicans. Let's just see how this plays out before we go assigning blame. And right-of-center candidates have no business taking political advice from left-of-center publications.

I Hate Every Iota of a Ritz

New Black Panther leader King Samir Shabazz: Unlike Mike Tyson, he doesn't want to eat your children. Just kill them. And he's apparently a-okay with the Obama/Holder Justice Department. Can't you feel the racial harmony growing?

I told you frequency would increase and here is the first effort at fulfilling that promise. With way too much time on my hands, here are the things I have and have not cared about lately:

Maybe I'm short-sighted and ignorant, but I don't care that much about the Damon Evans (UGA Athletic Director) DUI. Sounds like he did something really dumb, paid a tremendous price professionally, and likely one personally. My heart goes out to his family and whatever trials they may now face. I don't see the huge impact on UGA athletics. Athletic Director at the University of Georgia is a top ten job in its field and should attract plenty of qualified candidates. Only a bone-headed move by (UGA President) Michael Adams and/or the hiring committee could screw this up. The Dawgs should be fine.

I do care about racial politics defining our current presidential administration. Two specific issues:

1. When Arizona passes a law intentionally mirroring federal immigration law (racial profiling is specifically prohibited by the new law, contrary to what its detractors keep insisting), Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder files a lawsuit against the state, not on the grounds that it encourages racial profiling (as they claimed before actually reading the bill themselves), but on the grounds that it violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. At the same time, Obama's/Holder's Justice Department turns a blind eye to various "sanctuary cities" that have openly DEFIED the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution by refusing to enforce immigration law and/or cooperate with federal immigration authorities. As if the hypocrisy itself is not enough to boil a legal citizen's blood, I have little doubt that the motivation behind the hypocrisy is purely political. With approval numbers sinking and incompetency evident in every arena into which the administration prances, they are in desperate need of more sympathetic and loyal voters. The push for amnesty for illegal aliens is already subtly underway. Expect it to hit full stride in the months following the beat-down Democrats should receive in the November elections. If a lame duck Congress can't grant amnesty and a quick path to citizenship to millions of illegal aliens by the time a new Congress takes office in January, expect an executive order to that effect directly from the Enabler in Chief himself. Anything for more votes in 2012.

2. The issue surrounding the New Black Panthers and the voter intimidation from the 2008 election is not one that is likely to alter the course of our country (like the Arizona immigration lawsuit above may be), but it is a shameful anecdote further exposing the hypocrisy of this administration. In case you missed it, imagine for a moment that you are a minority voter on election day and you encounter a hooded KKK member brandishing a club right outside the entrance to your polling place. How many black voters do you think would feel intimidated? How many might report it to the authorities? What are the odds that the racist thug would be arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of voter intimidation? Well, apparently, the same rules don't apply to New Black Panther leader King Samir Shabazz. Not only did this guy dress up in pseudo-military garb, wield a club, and intimidate white voters at a polling location in 2008, but it's all on video all over the internet (seen in the first few seconds of this video clip). Not only did the guy that said “You're going to have to kill some crackers...you're going to have to kill their babies,” (also on video all over the internet and a few seconds deeper into the same video clip) not face any criminal charges, but Obama's/Holder's Justice Department chose to drop the civil case against him after having won it. Further, one former Justice Department attorney (J. Christian Adams) recently testified that current Justice Department policy would not include prosecution of black defendants in voter intimidation cases where the victims were white.

However accurate and provable Adams' testimony turns out to be, the Obama/Holder Justice Department clearly has no interest in pursuing cases against radical, racist, black-supremacy groups where evidence is plentiful, no interest in enforcing the Supremacy Clause in "sanctuary cities" thumbing their noses at federal immigration law, and is willing to file a lawsuit against one of its own states attempting to enforce federal immigration law. So much for Obama personifying an end to racial politics in America.

Oh yeah, I also don't care where LeBron James plays basketball next year.

Clever Post

Maintaining a blog is a far more difficult job than one might expect (especially for a semi-unemployed, semi-bachelor). My main struggle is one of quality vs. quantity. While the quality of this blog is debatable, the quantity is certainly lacking (at least where frequency is concerned--I know some specific posts aren't lacking quantity).

I guess this is where I need some focus. I am not running short of opinions. I'm just not sure which ones to voice when. Should I just run my mouth about anything and everything that comes to mind or should I wait until I have something clever to say? I've convinced myself that there could be some unbearably long gaps between posts if I'm waiting to come up with something clever to say. I think it's safe to say that we might have already experienced such gaps (and likely for an unsatisfying level of cleverness).

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm going to try to increase the frequency of my posts, possibly shorten them (though I'm not making any promises), and worry less about being clever. If I'm clever, great. If I'm not, at least I gave you something with which to pass a few minutes at work (if you choose to read it...and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't).

So, which of my many thoughts should I try to express before the brevity of this post expires? Did that last sentence even make sense? No matter. I'm not trying to be clever anymore. I've got it! One thing that really irks me

Rambling Oil Leak Post

Several hundred miles west of ANWR, these caribou seem pretty at peace with the oil rig in the distance.

Hey, has anyone heard about this big oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico? It's apparently pretty bad. And according to Matt Lauer, we're watching our appetite for oil spew out of that well. Boy, do I feel bad about driving my 13-year-old, 35 mile-per-gallon Honda Civic everywhere I go. I guess we should all get up several hours early to ride our bicycles to work. With four to six less hours a day to spend time with our families, shop, or come up with new business ideas, that's sure to increase productivity and stimulate the economy. Maybe we should shut down all power plants that aren't run on windmills and set ourselves back 150 years.

At the end of the day, whether you live in fear of global warming and hate corporations or drive SUVs and relish the 2nd Amendment, fossil fuels are a necessary part of our economy and livelihood for the foreseeable future. Even if you are okay camping out in your yard and not bathing for the next 10 or 20 years, most of the rest of us are not. Deal with it. When alternative energy sources become economically viable, the rest of us will gladly make use of them. Until then, I promise (you have my word on this), the Earth will not melt and no species that anyone will miss will die off.

Don't get me wrong. I feel bad for the pelicans and the fish and the dolphins and the shrimp (not the sharks because they look mean and I saw a movie once where they ate a lot of perfectly nice people to a haunting John Williams soundtrack). All joking aside, even this unapologetic conservative hates to see animals suffer. Just ask my half-blind cat.

That said, there are plenty of fish (and shrimp and dolphins and pelicans and even sharks) in the sea. What concerns me more are the human impacts. Surely all the environmentalists remember the species to which they belong. We're the ones with the thumbs.

How many shrimp boat captains (and other seafood-related industries) are out of work for the next decade or two? Obviously, this angle is nothing new, but in a time in which our struggling economy is at the forefront of all our minds, this angle cannot be understated. This is an entire region of our country left without one of its primary economic engines. Imagine the northeast without steel. Imagine Michigan without cars (oops). Imagine the Midwest without corn. Imagine L.A. without crappy movies.

As I understand it, many of the restaurants on the Atlantic coast get their shrimp from the Gulf (and their crabs and lobster from the northeast). I can't confirm this, but however much truth there is to that notion, we will all certainly feel it as we go out to eat on the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina, etc. For that matter, it makes me wonder why I expect (and often believe) the seafood is any better at the beach if most of it is being shipped in from other regions. Theoretically, if restaurants in Charleston, Hilton Head, and Savannah are all getting their shrimp from the Gulf and their crab and lobster from the northeast, I should be able to get equally as impressive seafood at comparable prices in Atlanta, if not Athens. But I digress...

To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure what the ultimate point of this post is. I just felt like I should post something on the biggest story of the last two or three months. I will say that I am not an ardent BP apologist. They clearly messed up. Even so, any efforts to blame this on George W. Bush or Republicans is absurd. Following are the three primary reasons I find such a case to be stupid, ignorant, and juvenile:

1. Environmentalists have prevented drilling for oil in safer, more manageable environments (such as shallower water and the most remote reaches of the Alaskan wilderness). Contrary to what Our Fearless Leader would have us believe, we are not running out of oil. We have more oil in our grasp than OPEC. Over-regulation and fear-mongering have prevented us from exploring our vast resources. A leak in shallower water would be far easier to control.

2. Obama's response has been painfully slow. Never mind that he waited almost three weeks to begin to address the issue (compared to the three days it took Bush to respond to Katrina...a situation that required local and state requests for federal assistance...as opposed to an incident in waters controlled only by our federal government and therefore a situation to which the President was solely responsible for responding). Even if you blame BP for misinformation, how is that any worse than the faulty intelligence Bush relied on to invade Iraq? And even if you are misled by BP, why would you turn down international help (particularly from the Dutch and all their skimmers) only three days in? Without getting into too much detail, the answer is that he refused to suspend the Jones Act (a law protecting American unionized maritime labor) to allow foreign ships and workers from helping with the cleanup (something Bush did immediately in his Katrina efforts). Only now, 70-something days in (weeks after oil has reached our shores and marshes and destroyed industry on the Gulf Coast for years to come), is he accepting foreign assistance. Atta boy.

3. And finally, if any "deregulation" of the oil industry during Bush's two terms could be REMOTELY credited with this incident, the Obama administration has had a year and a half to re-regulate the industry. Instead, they have been more interested in stimulus bill after stimulus bill and health care legislation that the American people have roundly rejected. If anything done in the Bush years could be assigned blame for this incident, the failure to act in the year and a half since on the part of the Obama administration is at least equally to blame. Period.

On a related note, I would argue that an oil leak, while ugly and sad in the short term, is not entirely evil just because humans were involved in its creation. Oil and fossil fuels are as natural as water, dirt, grass, and air. If an earthquake had caused this leak, would we still blame a corporation or George W. Bush? Probably, but only because we have become so susceptible to the idea that anything that isn't picturesque on this planet is our fault and we aren't as worthy as the plants and animals around us to be here.

Why do we treat ourselves as aliens on our own planet? If you follow the secular humanist line of thinking (which I don't) that we are just another animal, we have as much right to survive and thrive as anything else around us. That's not to say that we should intentionally abuse and torture animals (I believe God loves them too), but if we can better ourselves and our posterity through the use of NATURAL resources (and arguably resources that our superior intellect uncovers and creates), why not? Why aren't environmentalists crusading against the fire ants that keep displacing the dirt in my beautiful lawn, probably increasing the likelihood of erosion? That anthill was no more natural than my lawn, house, or driveway. I have as much right to build a house or an office complex as those little pains in my butt do of building an anthill in my yard. They are no more special than me...or you.

To take it a step further, why shouldn't I disturb ANWR (Alaskan wilderness with untold oil reserves) to reach a NATURAL resource? Do the doors and windows on my house prevent the ants and spiders and roaches from making use of my air conditioning or unprotected food? Do they stop for a second and think "You know, this isn't really NATURAL for us to be in here. Maybe we should go find food and shelter the old-fashioned way"? Yes, we're smarter than them and shouldn't burn all our trees to the ground just because we can, BUT because we're smarter than them, we should be able to reason that our actions will impact them just as their actions impact us. It's not the end of the world if we impact our environment. We're a part of it too.

We'll survive this oil spill. It will hurt our economy, some animals, and most importantly, a lot of people. But at the end of the day, we're the craftiest of God's creatures. We'll survive and we'll find a way to make sure our planet does too. I only hope our liberty survives as well.